This is a story I wrote nearly eight years ago for the Speed City Sisters in Crime anthology, Homicide for the Holidays. I offer it as a Christmas gift to all those who have read my works over the past years. Merry Christmas to each of you.
Unexpected Gifts
“Oh, baby, baby, baby! ! ! Momma’s gotta pee.”
Maria Wafford pushed her foot harder on the brake pedal and pulled her knees closer together. She held her breath. If something didn’t move soon, she was going to pee all over the heated white leather seats in her new Mercedes sedan.
Johnny Mathis came over the seasonal satellite radio channel singing something about marshmallows and Christmas. Maria tried to sing along to get her mind off the intense urge in her bladder, but she couldn’t concentrate enough to follow the words.
“Hurry up. Please!” The unhearing line of cars creeped forward a car length, then two. Then stopped.
Maria glanced into her rearview mirror. Her new dress hung from the hook above the window. Piled on the rear seats were nearly a dozen bags from Keystone at the Crossing – Nordstrom, Ann Taylor, Brooks Brothers, Michael Kors, Coach and her favorite, Tiffany’s. Carter will be so happy with what he bought me for Christmas.
One of the Nordstrom bags included the three new pairs of shoes she bought because she couldn’t make up her mind which one went best with her new holiday dress.
Why didn’t I just grab the first pair of shoes? I would be home now. I wouldn’t be sitting here trying not to pee my pants.
A more urgent pang hit. “Oh, baby, why did I have to try on all those shoes? Why didn’t I go before we left the store?”
Flashing blue and red lights reflected off the cars in the left lane. The lanes in front of Maria were clear. There was an exit just a short distance ahead. Hope sprang in her that she might make it.
Maria remembered the fake cover she had on her elementary school English book. “Fifty Steps to the Outhouse, by Willie Makeit, Illustrated by Betty Wont.” She gave a short laugh but stopped when she felt the increased pressure on her bladder.
The cars in Maria’s lane were moving again, this time no longer creeping. Two minutes later, the right lane expanded into an exit. It wasn’t an exit she with which she was familiar, but from the roadside signs, she knew there were at least two gas stations. And bathrooms. Thank Jesus, bathrooms.
Maria accelerated down the exit, barely slowing to take the right turn at the bottom of the ramp. The neon sign of an off-brand gas station shined bright only a block away. She didn’t even care if the bathroom was clean. She didn’t care if she had to hover. She didn’t even care if she had to use the sink. She just needed someplace to pee.
A handicapped space was closest to the gas station convenience store entrance. Maria saw the sign but ignored it. There was no time to deal with the car seat in the back. “Baby, momma’s gotta pee. I’ll just be gone a couple of minutes.”
Maria left the car running to keep it warm and ran, nearly knocking over an elderly man exiting the store with two six packs in his hands.
“Hey, lady!”
Maria ignored him. “Bathroom!” she yelled at the young woman behind the counter.
The clerk rolled her eyes and pointed to a far corner of the store. A sign painted on the wall said “RESTROOMS.” Maria ran, trying hold her legs together and not pee on the floor.
* * *
Kevan Johnson and Cedrick Stone stood behind some bushes in the shadows around the corner of the convenience store. The location gave them a clear view of the parking lot but kept them hidden from customers and any roving patrol cars. For the past hour they had been passing fattys and watching for the right opportunity to boost a car. It was Kevan who saw the gleaming luxury sedan pull into a handicapped spot, and a well-dressed woman get out and run into the store. The car was running.
Kevan punched Cedrick on the shoulder, then pointed. “Damn man, look what rolled in. That’s an S Class. That’s a hundred large if it’s a dime.”
Cedrick took a deep drag on the last bit of the joint, then threw the roach under a bush. “I don’t know man. They got all kinds of theft stuff on them. They’ll get us before we can get rid of it.”
“She ran back toward the bathroom. She didn’t have her purse with her, so I bet she don’t got her phone, neither. We’ll be clear across town before the cops get here. Let’s do it.”
If they hadn’t split a shoplifted six-pack and shared three fattys, their decision might have been different. But for two seventeen-year-olds, the booze and bud took away any lingering inhibitions.
They looked at each other. Kevan nodded, and they took off on a run toward the car. They moved with an efficiency honed through a dozen earlier car thefts. Cedrick headed toward the driver’s side, while Kevan ran behind the car. He slipped a magnetic dealer’s plate from under his coat and slapped it over the existing plate. By the time Kevan reached the passenger seat, Cedrick already had the car in reverse and moving. Kevan grabbed the purse off the passenger seat as he slid into place.
“Go.”
The car was up the entrance ramp and on the interstate before Maria stepped out of the store.
* * *
“Where’s my car?” Maria said the words out loud. She scanned the lot, looking left, then right. This is where I parked, isn’t it? I put the car in park, didn’t I?
It took the better part of a minute for the reality to hit her. Her car was gone.
An instant later, Maria’s world crashed around her. “My baby! Someone took my baby!”
She reached in her pocket, desperately grabbing for the cell phone that wasn’t there. Panic shot through her like an electrical current. She ran back inside the store. She could barely get the words out through her gasps and sobs.
“Someone took my car! My baby’s in it. My baby!”
The clerk stared blankly at Maria.
“Call the police. Someone took my car and my baby is in it. Call the police.”
The clerk seemed only to vaguely grasp the gravity of the situation. With no discernable urgency, she walked to the end of the counter, picked up a desk phone and dialed 911.
* * *
Cedrick swung the car up onto the entrance ramp for I-465, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the gas station. It would take the police at least ten minutes, probably longer, to respond to the 911 call for a stolen car. By that time, they could be halfway across Indianapolis. Maybe further.
“Jackpot!”
Cedrick looked over toward Kevan. He was holding up a thick wad of bills.
“How much?”
Kevan counted, then recounted. “Damn, there’s more than $800 here. She had five hundies hid away in a side pocket. Plus there’s five, no, six credit cards. There’s a black American Express card, a black Visa card, one from Nordstrom’s. These are top of the line. And we got her driver’s license.”
“Jackpot is right.”
“Wait. We got pin numbers. She had ‘em on a piece of paper in that side pocket. We are gold, man.”
Cedrick and Kevan bumped fists and laughed. Cedrick nodded toward the consul between them where an iPhone sat plugged into a charger. “Throw that out the window.”
“We can get some money for that.”
“They can track those. Get rid of it.”
Kevan shrugged and grabbed the phone. Cedrick took the Washington Street exit. Kevan lowered his window a few inches and flipped the phone outside. In the mirror, he saw it bounce and shatter on the pavement.
“Cars like this. Don’t they have trackers, too?”
Cedrick nodded. “That’s why we’re going right to Tony. He’ll disable whatever they got. Cars like this, he sells them down in Mexico. That’s what I heard. I bet he’ll give us twenty bills for it.”
“Sweet.” Kevan turned to look at the back seat. “Hey, looks like she just did her Christmas shopping tonight.”
“Anything in those bags worth having?”
“There ain’t no Walmart bags here. Nordstrom. Brooks Brothers. Damn, there’s even a Tiffany’s bag. That’s a jewelry store, ain’t it?”
Kevan pulled the largest bag into the front seat. As he did, he heard a sound.
Cedrick heard it too.
It was cooing. It sounded like a baby.
Kevan moved the bags around revealing a car seat that had been blocked from view. “There’s a baby back here. Oh, damn. There is a baby.”
“What? You sure.” As soon as he said it, Cedrick realized how stupid the comment was.
“Of course, I’m sure. I know what a baby is.” Kevan twisted further in his seat to get a better look. Strapped inside the car seat, facing the rear, was a baby wearing a blue hooded winter coat with a blanket wrapped snugly around him. A pair of deep brown eyes looked up at Kevan, then closed in sleep.
Cedrick turned full around, catching a glimpse of the baby.
“Watch where you’re going, Ced! You just ran that light.”
Cedrick drove on for several blocks. When he saw an unlit parking lot in front of a deserted strip center, he pulled in and stopped.
“What are we gonna do, man?” There was an edge of panic in Kevan’s voice. “Boosting a car is one thing, but taking a baby? They’ll put us away for fifty years.”
“I’m thinking. I’m thinking.”
* * *
The store clerk called 911. It was fifteen minutes before the IMPD patrol car arrived. Maria was shaking. When she could catch her breath between sobs, she was cursing the police for taking so much time. It took another ten minutes for patrolwoman Karla Houseman to calm Maria enough to get the basics of what had happened.
Maria provided very little in the way of a description of the car other than it was a new white Mercedes, one of the expensive ones. “S Class or C Class. I never can keep that straight.” Neither she nor the clerk had seen anyone approach the car. It would be up to the detectives to check the store security video.
Karla radioed for detectives, then tried to calm Maria with little success. They walked to the police cruiser where Karla used the computer to check motor vehicle records. She confirmed that Karla’s car was an S Class Mercedes sedan. and obtained the license number. With all the information in hand, Karla radioed to request an immediate Amber Alert. By the time the detectives arrived and the Amber Alert was issued, nearly an hour had elapsed.
* * *
After several minutes of silence, it was Kevan who spoke. “We gotta get this car off the street.”
“Tony’s garage isn’t far from here. We can take the back streets. He’ll take this off our hands. Maybe he can loan us a car for a couple of days, too.”
“But what about the kid?”
“We’ll figure it out. But we gotta get rid of this car.”
On the way to Tony’s, they hit three ATMs. Using care to make sure their faces weren’t caught by the security cameras, they used the cards and pin numbers from Maria’s purse to drain $3,000 from her accounts. They split the money.
Fifteen minutes later, Cedrick drove the Mercedes down an unlit alley in an area of largely abandoned commercial buildings. He stopped in front of a ramshackle concrete block building with an oversized garage door. Cedrick blew the horn in two sets of three long bursts. It was a signal they had used before. With a clanking of metal on metal, the door slowly raised. As soon as the door was high enough to clear the roof, Cedrick pulled forward into the dim grease-stained garage.
Tony Wells walked toward them, wiping his hands on a shop towel. Nearly 60, short and round, wearing oil-stained coveralls, he was a throwback to another time when cars and life were less complex. Behind him, two men nosily worked under a late model Honda CRV that was up on a lift.
As Cedrick and Kevan got out of the car, Tony gave a low whistle. “Damn, where’d you boys pick that up?”
“Gas station,” Cedrick said. “Woman went in and left the car running.”
“S Class. Looks cherry.”
“It is,” Cedrick said. “But we got a problem.” Cedrick opened the back door, revealing the car seat. The racket in the garage woke the baby, who began to fuss.
Tony stepped back like he had been punched in the chest. He waived his open hands at arm’s length as if trying to ward off an aparition. “No, no, no, no. I’m not touching this. I ain’t getting involved in nothing to do with snatching a kid.”
“Com’on Tony,” Cedrick said, a touch of pleading in his voice. “We’ll take care of the kid. We ain’t gonna hurt him. But this car’s worth six figures. We can’t just give it back. We’ll even take a discount. You just give us one of your junkers so we can get back home, then you can pay us later after you off-load this.”
Tony seemed to reconsider, then again shook his head. “I’ve been handling hot cars for forty years, but I don’t touch nothin’ else. No drugs. No violence. No snatching kids. That’s how I stay out of jail and alive. I want you two out of here. Now.”
Kevan and Cedrick looked at each other. Their dreams of a twenty-grand score were gone. Cedrick ran a hand through his hair. There was desperation in his voice. “Man, at least let us use one of your cars. We’ve brought you some good business. You can do that. We’ll dump the Mercedes someplace on the way home.”
Tony stood with his hands resting on his ample belly, looking upward. After a long minute, he walked over to a pegboard loaded with maybe twenty sets of keys. Using his shop towel, he removed a set of keys from the board, wiped them down, then flipped them to Cedrick. “There’s a piece of junk silver Caravan parked on the street about half a block down. Dinged up right side. You take it, but you were never here. You understand? You get caught, you heisted it off the street.”
“Sure, Tony. Thanks.”
“I’m serious. You were never here. And make sure you don’t leave that Mercedes anyplace close to here.”
Without another word, Cedrick and Kevan got back in the Mercedes and backed out of the garage. The Caravan was easy to spot. Kevan got out and slid behind the wheel. It smelled like three-day-old puke, but there wasn’t going to be an Amber Alert for it.
Kevan followed the Mercedes through a series of two-lane residential side streets. Two miles from Tony’s garage, Kevan pulled the Mercedes behind a dilapidated commercial building with a fading sign for what had once been a local hardware store. Kevan put the van in park, but kept the engine running, afraid that if he shut it off, it might not restart. He watched Cedrick moving around inside the Mercedes. After several minutes, Cedrick got out carrying a small bag in one hand.
Kevan exited the battered Caravan and walked up to Cedrick. They stood in the dark among the rubble from the building. It smelled like piss and spoiled food, the remnants from the homeless vagrants and crack whores who had found a night’s shelter in the lee of the building.
“What do we do now?” Kevan asked.
“We got almost $4,000 cash. And I grabbed this.” Cedrick held up the Tiffany’s bag in his hand. “It’s a Rolex. We ain’t getting twenty thousand for the car, but it ain’t bad for one night. I wiped down the car. We just leave it here.”
“What about the kid?”
“What about him? We didn’t leave him in the car. The mother did. Let her worry about that. I ain’t doing time ‘cause some mom left a kid in a running car. That’s on her.”
“I don’t know, Ced. It’s just a baby. It’s cold out here. Gonna get colder tonight. That kid might freeze to death.”
Cedrick walked close to Kevan, their faces separated only by inches. “I told you, that’s not my problem. If the mom didn’t care, why should I. If the cops don’t find that baby in time, it ain’t my problem, neither. I didn’t cause ‘em to be so stupid.”
Kevan looked down and shook his head. There was a long silence before he spoke. “I ain’t leavin’ no baby to die in the cold.”
“Don’t be a pussy, Kevan.”
Kevan looked up. “I ain’t a pussy. But I ain’t no baby killer, neither.”
Cedrick walked past Kevan and got into the driver’s seat of the Caravan. “I’m leaving. You comin’?”
Kevan just stood there, his chin tucked into his chest. He heard the van slip into gear and drive away. He did not look up.
* * *
Maria sat in her living room, her face buried in her hands. There were no tears. She had cried them all out. Her husband, Carter, paced across the expansive formal living room. He had been doing so for the past two hours, ever since the policewoman brought Maria home. Two couples, friends who live nearby, kept a silent vigil.
Karla Houseman, notebook open, sat in a straight-back chair that was carried in from the adjoining dining room. The detective in charge ordered her to drive Maria home and stay until someone arrived to relieve her.
Karla stood by as Maria broke the news to her husband. Carter Wafford responded first with disbelief, then shock, and finally with unrestrained anger. “How could you be so stupid? What kind of mother leaves her baby in the car with the engine running? Don’t you have any brains at all? If anything happens to him, it will all be your fault.“ It was ugly.
As time passed, Carter made some effort to control his anger. He even made a meager effort to console his distraught wife. But there was no consoling her.
Karla couldn’t help but thing how awful it would be if the child was found dead. It would taint every Christmas for Maria and her husband for as long as they lived. It would undoubtedly destroy their marriage, if it had not already done so.
The ring of Karla’s cell phone went through the room like a shockwave. Karla dug the phone from her utility belt. “Houseman.”
Karla listened for several minutes. “Thank you. Keep me posted.” She clicked off and turned to face the tense looks of everyone in the room.
“They found the car.” Karla could see the instantaneous relief on the faces but knew it would not last. “Your baby wasn’t there.”
“Oh, Jesus.” It was one of the neighbors.
Karla tried to provide some optimism. “There’s some good news. There was no sign of violence. The car seat is gone. You said there was a blanket in the backseat?”
Maria nodded.
“It’s gone, too. So is the diaper bag. Those are good signs. Someone is at least looking after the baby. The detectives and crime scene guys are there checking over the car. Patrolmen are out banging on doors, waking people up to see if anyone saw something. We’ve got all our resources on this.” After a pause, Karla added, “We’ll find your baby and bring him home.”
Karla wished she felt more confident in what she was saying.
* * *
Kevan walked through the night chill, aimlessly wandering along the cracked sidewalk in some nameless neighborhood. Kevan had lost track of how long he had been walking, or where he was. His right arm was numb from carrying the car seat. Under the blanket, with a winter coat snuggly in place, the baby was asleep. Kevan didn’t want to risk waking the baby by switching arms, so on he walked.
Solitary tears slid down his cheeks. He told himself they were from the wind in his face. Someplace inside, he knew better.
As he approached an intersection, he saw dim lights streaming from the windows in a large building. At first, he thought it was some type of warehouse. It was only as he drew closer that he recognized it as one of those old-fashioned churches – deep red brick with a bell tower stretching upward into the darkness. Concrete steps leading to an arched entrance with two oversized wooden doors. From inside, there was a faint sound of music. He heard an organ, then a choir with the strains of a Christmas Carol he had heard in childhood but didn’t remember.
Kevan stopped and listened for a moment. He looked at the baby resting in the car seat then headed up the steps. He eased open one of the doors that creaked ever so slightly. Light projected through the church from the front where the choir was singing. Kevan stood behind the last row of pews as music continued. A soloist was singing.
“Mary did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding is the great I Am”
The choir repeated the refrain “Mary did you know?” until the music faded. It was only then that the woman conducting noticed the stranger in the back of the church.
“Can I help you,” she said, her voice carrying to the back of the church. When there was no response, the woman repeated her call.
Kevan said nothing, but his sobs became audible, echoing through the sanctuary. Patricia Holmes put down her conducting baton. She signaled the choir to stay in place and walked the length of the church to where Kevan stood, shoulders slumped.
Patricia tried to make her voice soothing. “I’m Reverend Patricia Holmes. Everyone just calls me Patricia.” She looked at the car seat Kevan was holding. “What have we here? A baby?”
Slowly, Patricia leaned down and eased back the blanket. A baby with dark brown eyes, a full head of wiry black hair and deep cocoa-colored skin looked back, just a hint of a smile on his face. It was obvious that the child did not belong to the young ruddy-skinned teenager standing in front of her.
“He’s so precious. What’s his name?”
Kevan could barely get the words out. “I . . . I don’t know.”
Patricia took the car seat from Kevan and eased the diaper bag off his shoulder. She directed him to a seat in the nearest pew. “Come sit. How did we sound? This is our last practice for our Christmas Eve program tomorrow night. That’s why we’re here so late. We just want to make it perfect.”
Kevan nodded. “Pretty good, I guess,” he mumbled.
Patricia turned toward the choir. She raised her voice to be heard. “That sounded wonderful. I think we’re ready. I’m going to talk to this young man for a while, but I think we can call it a night. Thank you all. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The choir began to mill about, putting on their coats. But no one left. They would not leave the pastor alone with this stranger who just wandered in.
Patricia sat next to Kevan. Her voice was now soft. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
So Kevan did. He told the entire story, only leaving out Cedrick’s name and the visit to Tony’s garage.
Patricia put her arm around Kevan as he talked. When he was done, they sat silent for a long time. Finally, Patricia said, “You did the right thing, you know that? Not hurting the child, I mean.”
Kevan gave a small nod.
“You need to be proud of that. But we need to get in touch with the child’s mother. She must be worried sick.”
Kevan nodded again.
They sat in silence for several more minutes. Patricia nodded toward the front of the church where a nativity was set up near the alter. “You know why we celebrate Christmas don’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess. I seen the stuff on TV.”
“We celebrate the birth of a baby, much like this baby. That baby came to us to bring peace, to forgive us and save us from our sins.”
A small tear ran down Kevan’s cheek, but he said nothing.
“I think maybe that’s what this baby has done, Kevan. Just like Jesus, this baby touched you. Touched those good places in you.” She paused. “I think this baby is here to save you.”
Tears flooded down Kevan’s face. He made no effort to wipe them aside. “I ain’t nothing but a doper and a thief. That’s all I am.”
Patricia gave Kevan a long hug, then whispered in his ear. “You know, the last man Jesus saved while he was on the cross was a thief.”
Patricia stood. She slung the diaper bag over her shoulder and picked up the baby. “There’s a changing table in the restroom. Let me change this child’s diaper, then we can make some phone calls and get this baby back with his mother. I’ll be right back.”
Kevan nodded but didn’t say anything.
Five minutes later, Patricia walked back into the sanctuary, the freshly-diapered baby nestled in her arms. She looked out across the pews. The church was empty.
